


the hold of the lord on my sparrow

by wolfchester



Series: friendly savages [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Confessions of love, F/M, That's it, an old fic that i'm digging up and finally putting to rest lol, dean goes to hell and there's five years of angst and then he comes back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:40:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27099772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfchester/pseuds/wolfchester
Summary: dean and jo during the best and the worst times.
Relationships: Jo Harvelle/Dean Winchester
Series: friendly savages [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977598
Kudos: 8





	the hold of the lord on my sparrow

**Author's Note:**

> yet ANOTHer old spn fic i'm digging up and finally letting see the light of day. again, this was written almost 7 years ago, so i apologise in advance for the cheesiness/terribleness of it. but, hey, there needs to be more wholesome deanjo fics floating around out there. i offer this one up as a gift !!
> 
> title and lyrics from the song 'the hold of the lord on my sparrow' by friendly savages

_ your name in the frost in the window _

_ your footprints in holes in the snow _

_ the hold of the Lord on my sparrow _

_ the fall to the ground in the cold _

_ i never told you that i love you _

_ i never said that i was sorry _

_ i'm on my back in the kitchen _

_ letting the telephone ring _

_ looking for your yellow mittens _

_ and i’m finding myself in the sink _

_ your eyes in the sun in the morning _

_ your smile in the emptiest night _

_ the hold of the Lord on my sparrow _

_ the hold of the blind to their sight _

* * *

She runs in front of him, skipping and laughing through the snow. The woollen hat she wears slips off of her head and lands onto the white. It’s made out of red fabric; a stark contrast to the snow, like blood. Her blonde hair whips around as she turns to face him, smiling. He holds out the hat and she takes it, fingers lingering a little too long on his arm.

The air is cold but her eyes are warm and Dean looks at Jo like she’s the only good thing in this world (she is, really). 

He leans in to kiss her, and he almost does, before there’s a snowball in his face, a laughing Jo, and a red cheek. 

“ _ Jo _ ,” he whines, “Couldn’t you have just let us have that one nice moment?”

She laughs in his face but kisses his cold cheek to satisfy him. “You can have your ‘nice moment’ later tonight,” she teases. “But first - we’re building a snowman.”

After a good half an hour of snowman-building (his name is Sandy and he wears a scarf and has no nose - they couldn’t find a carrot anywhere around), the activity leads to a snowball fight, which leads to both of them lying in the snow with a bad case of the giggles and flakes of white all throughout their hair.

“You got my favourite sweater wet, you idiot,” Jo says, thumping Dean in the shoulder as she stands up and brushes herself down. “I’m going to have to wash this  _ again _ .”

Dean just lays in the snow and smiles, offering up a hand for Jo to hoist him up. “You love me,” he winks.

She just can’t help herself, kissing his lips once, twice, before pulling away and replying: “That I do.”

* * *

It’s seven months since Dean went and got himself sent to Hell without so much of a warning or a goodbye. He just left on a hunting trip one day, told her he’d be back soon, and kissed her goodbye. She thought it would only be for a short time, but he never came back, and she’d had to find out what really happened from Bobby a month later. 

Jo spent the first month Dean was gone in denial. She told herself that there was nothing to worry about, that sometimes week-long hunting trips turned into four-week long hunting trips, that he and his stupid grin would be back on her doorstep within a few days. Then Bobby told her what really happened, and she got  _ mad. _

The next three months consisted of Jo Harvelle being angry. Being so filled with blinding rage at the son of a bitch who thought he would  _ actually  _ get away with leaving her like this, that he would even have made this deal in the first place, that it hurt her heart so  _ fucking _ much she figured by the three month mark it was time to stop. 

Then she moved on to seven weeks of trying to figure out a way to get Dean back. Spent hours upon hours of time poring over Bobby’s old manuscripts, trying to find a clue that would lead her to getting that idiot out of Hell. She spent the majority of these two months at Bobby’s, locked in the basement, with Bobby bringing her down food and booze every so often. He’d given up telling her it wouldn’t work, that he’d looked through everything before, because nothing could stop Jo once she was on a roll. It was like trying to stop a lava flow with your bare hands.

One day, Jo just  _ loses  _ it. She breaks down in her mom’s living room after another week at Bobby’s with nothing to show for. For what seems like hours, she sits on her mom’s couch with Ellen’s arms around her, sobbing into the cushions.  _ Why?  _ is the only question that swims around her head. Why did this happen? Why couldn’t Dean have made a good decision that didn’t hurt anyone just  _ once  _ in his life? Why didn’t he tell her he was leaving? Her mom just whispers sweet nothings into her daughter’s ears, things like “ _ it’s going to be okay _ ” that don’t actually have any significance but are good just the same.

Finally,  _ finally,  _ after seven months of denial, anger, sadness - she’s accepted that Dean’s not coming back, that he might be gone for good, that maybe that’s the way things are supposed to be. Every single atom in her body fights against this, says “ _ keep trying, don’t give up”  _ but she knows she has to move on somehow. Dean would want her to be happy. 

But on one particular day, a Sunday near the beginning of winter, everything turns to custard yet again. She’s in the kitchen, trying to find her misplaced woollen hat, and opens up a drawer where she finds Dean’s old yellow mittens.

Looking at the worn gloves brings back memories of falling snowflakes, of red cheeks, of dancing in the winter sun. She can almost feel the stubble of his cheek against her lips, his hands on her waist, and when she touches his gloves it’s like she’s touching the man himself. 

Jo lets out a cry as she falls to the ground, clutching the seemingly unimportant pieces of clothing to her chest and sobbing into her curled-up knees. No words, just tears. It feels like her entire world, the world she’s worked so hard to build up again, has crashed around her for a second time. 

The telephone rings but Jo ignores it. She’s wearing the mittens now, holding her gloved hands against her cheeks like maybe she’ll be able to feel the touch of the man who once wore them. Her mom leaves a voice message on her phone, telling her she’ll be up to visit in a week and that she hopes her baby girl is doing okay. Jo doesn’t move to get up, just stays seated on the linoleum floor, staring out of a window that still has the fingerprints of Dean Winchester all over it. 

* * *

Five days after a year Dean’s been gone, there’s a knock on Jo’s front door. She thinks it might be her mom, since Ellen had called her the other night to tell her she’d be up again soon. But what faces her when she opens that door is something she never expected.

It’s good ol’ Dean Winchester, looking exactly the same as when he left, but with more wrinkles and scars and a tired look in his eyes, like he’s seen so much darkness (he has). 

He doesn’t say anything, just smiles sadly at her, shoves his hands in his pockets and looks down at the  _ Welcome  _ mat that sits on her doorstep.

Her hands come up to cover her mouth, eyes wide, arms shaking as she takes in the sight of this man. 

“ _ Christo,” _ she murmurs under her breath, and when there is no flash of black in his eyes, she takes a step towards him.

“You- you’re- you’re  _ alive _ ?” she whispers, reaching out to gently touch his face, her feather-light touch making Dean close his eyes and lean into her hand. “I didn’t- Bobby said that you-” then she slaps him across the face and he winces but nods his head because he deserves it. “What the  _ hell _ , Dean Winchester?” she yells. “You don’t just get to  _ do _ that! You can’t just sell your soul to the fuckin’  _ Devil _ and not  _ tell me about it! _ ” Then she starts to cry, wiping her face furiously with the back of her hand. “I can’t believe- I can’t believe you’re here.  _ Fuck _ , I missed you so much-”

He opens his arms and she falls into them gladly, tears falling on his dirty green shirt. Sam’s necklace is till around his neck, if a little dulled in colour. There’s dirt crusting the fingers he smooths through her hair, sweat on the back of his neck from walking all this way, but love in his eyes (as well as tears) and love in his touch.

“I love you,” he whispers. “I never got to say it properly before I left. And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”

Jo pulls away from his embrace and looks at his square in the eyes, smiling softly. “Well,  _ that  _ plan really worked, didn’t it?” 

He frowns and kisses her forehead. “I’m sorry, Jo. I love you and I’m sorry.”

She sighs and kisses him once on the lips. “I love you, too, you know.”

Later, they’re lying on the couch listening to the rain on the tin roof. Bodies touching skin-to-skin, heart-to-heart. Dean rests his chin on the top of her head and wraps his arms around Jo’s small frame. She traces the outline of a hand burnt onto the side of his arm, doesn’t ask (yet) what it means, just kisses it softly.

“I’m glad you came back,” she says finally.

He closes his eyes and grins, breathing in the smell of her hair. “I’m glad I did, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> come follow me on @jjmaybank with me and cry about deanjo (even though it's been 13495849 years)


End file.
